Commercial aircraft components have traditionally incorporated interior arrays of interconnected metal parts, including spars, ribs and stringers, for meeting varying tensile, compression, bending, and torsional load demands incurred in aircraft flight and landing operations. As newer, lighter, and stronger, composite materials have become available for enhancing structural support, additional possibilities exist for building stronger components for improving performance without weight penalties of traditional metal structures.
One aspect of this initiative involves critical measurements of component parts to be assembled to avoid issues related to tolerance stack-up. Such measurements can help minimize on-board drilling and associated clean-up operations for enhanced manufacturing efficiencies. Although significant gains have been achieved in uses of coordinate measurement machines, including three-dimensional scanning, robotic arms, and other associated technologies, there remain potential opportunities for realizing even greater tolerance accuracies and to thus enhance structural integration of component parts.